Rugby player conviction in France

[bevm72yellow]

Our local rugby club here ( in Northern Ireland) invited a former Ireland player convicted of not preventing a crime in the gang rape of a 20 year old woman in France in 2018. His crutch was one of the weapons used in the violence.
He was convicted and tagged to remain in France for 2 years. He was in photos with players ( male and female) from the local club. It was in national newspaper with headline about conviction. I feel that because it was his home club the conviction was disregarded and it happened elsewhere they were accepting of hosting him.....It made me see how far this rural club neglects the welfare of women wherever they are. Lipservice to a women's team but if they were the victim how they would be treated.

Someone actually invited him back here?! Bloody hell, I know society has a crap attitude to violence against women here in NI but this takes the feckin biscuit.

It was his first club. He is from the area. I think locals will not say much in a community where people know and work beside each other but many may quietly choose another club. I mean nobody was given a vote to say will we invite him.

Sadly there will be some who think because he didn't "take part" so to speak, he didnt do it and has served his time etc etc

Professionals would not be allowed/ restricted to remain on professional registers if they were convicted of something so serious. But a professional rugby player is permitted to be involved in representational event photos as in example to others. His conviction is minimised but his representation is not.

He was permitted ot of France with another year under suspended sentence.

Let's face it though, previous trials in NI have shown us that the rugby culture is not exactly caring about what happens to women. 😡

I noticed that reports of the gang rape trial in the Irish media didn't go into the full horror of it. They were correctly factual about a rape having taken place, I couldn't fault them on that, but sometimes the awfulness of what happened adds an extra and ongoing layer of disgust towards those who were present/participated/did not intervene. This man was not charged with rape, he was convicted of being present during the rape and not intervening to prevent it.

In fairness to the governing body of rugby in NI, Ulster Rugby, they have said
“While we do not have authority over the club’s event schedule, we want to be clear that, in line with our values and our duty of care to players, staff, and supporters, we do not support individuals with ­serious past convictions being involved in rugby.”

This looks like locals closing ranks around somebody who 'has done his time' [actually wore an electric tag].

I'm maybe not looking in the right places but I can find very little media coverage on the trial. The BBC seems more intent on how many caps he has and what teams he’s played for. As for Clogher rugby club what mindless, misogynistic twats they are. Yeah, NI is definitely not known for its critical thinking when it comes to VAWG. I say that as a Northern Irish woman.